#careertransition – #4 of 8 | I recently went through a process of career exploration and made a significant career switch. This series of 8 posts is a synthesis of the lessons I’ve learnt.
As you explore, you’re going to come across jobs/projects/opportunities that look exciting. The question is how to evaluate them.
I think it comes down to four questions:
- Do you believe in the space? Is this a space where the work matters to you, and where the trajectory makes sense for where the world is headed?
- Do you believe in the company/organization? Is this a company that has a real shot at winning in that space? Is there something about how they operate, their strategy, their position, that gives you conviction?
- Do you believe in the people? Are these people with that combination of intelligence, integrity and energy that you believe in?
- Do you believe you’ll be set up for success? This one is easy to overlook. You might believe in the space, the company, and the people – but if the role, the scope, or the circumstances don’t set you up to do your best work, it’s going to be hard.
Of course, if you’re starting up yourself, some of these questions get modified. But they largely hold.
It’s worth being honest with yourself about where you have conviction and where you don’t. In my case, after many weeks of exploring starting up myself, I realized I didn’t believe in my ability to win. Founding a company requires some earned insight or unfair advantage that typically comes from deep understanding of a problem space – and I was drawn to problem spaces where I didn’t have any advantage.
That led me to realize that I wanted to join a small company in a problem space I was drawn to – a different path than what I thought I’d pursue but the right one at this point of time.
A Learning a Day 